JGP Pokal d. Blauen Schwerter Entries

So we see - Barbie's second place in Slovenia is a lost effort.
Why?
Does USFS treat Samantha as much better skater, and it compensates 2 points less?
Or they want to give 19-years-old Samantha last chance (next season she will be too old for JGP), while Barbie is young enough to try more next seasons?

http://fcp-press.ru/interview/p2_articleid/5182 (Russian) - Shershak's coach Volchkova told about Shershak:
"Should go on the Event to Germany, but we will pass it because the arisen problems in stock of the skater. As Anna's unsuccessful performance at her first Event, didn't leave by it chances to be selected on Finals."

So we see - Barbie's second place in Slovenia is a lost effort.
Why?
Does USFS treat Samantha as much better skater, and it compensates 2 points less?
Or they want to give 19-years-old Samantha last chance (next season she will be too old for JGP), while Barbie is young enough to try more next seasons?

http://fcp-press.ru/interview/p2_articleid/5182 (Russian) - Shershak's coach Volchkova told about Shershak:
"Should go on the Event to Germany, but we will pass it because the arisen problems in stock of the skater. As Anna's unsuccessful performance at her first Event, didn't leave by it chances to be selected on Finals."

Possibly they want to give Cesario a last hurrah. But her score even with a bronze medal was 10 points higher than Long's with a silver. And IMO, Cesario had the stiffer field. I didn't see a compelling reason to switch gears and go to Long in this situation.

Shershak appears to be a sad/frustrating case. She's pleasant to watch and has some nice qualities but keeps shooting herself in the foot. Nerves? Preparation issues? Russian Fed isn't cutting her any breaks.

^
Cesario vs Long.
It is difficult to compare scores of different competitions - different judges give different points for the same.
Cesario has not 3+3 combo, Long has 3Lz+3T. But Cesario had only one UR jump and no jumps of less rotations than planned, Long had 3 URs and 2A+1T+1Lo.
Their PCS and non-jumps elements are comparable.
So for me it is difficult to compatre. May be, USFS does it better.

About Shershak.
We call this situation "not ready". How and why not ready - problem of skater and coach, we see result.
Shershak did not take place in OpenMoscow competitions (early September), she was at Test Skate (middle September). After that she was mowed from Event 4 to Event 5 JGP. So her coach also did know that she is not ready, and was a hope that she will be ready in near future. Because it was not so - she has not second event.

Possibly they want to give Cesario a last hurrah. But her score even with a bronze medal was 10 points higher than Long's with a silver. And IMO, Cesario had the stiffer field. I didn't see a compelling reason to switch gears and go to Long in this situation.

Shershak appears to be a sad/frustrating case. She's pleasant to watch and has some nice qualities but keeps shooting herself in the foot. Nerves? Preparation issues? Russian Fed isn't cutting her any breaks.

Cesario has a 2nd assignment simply because she was assigned to her 1st event before Long was is what I think it really comes down to. USFS tends to give priority to girls who skate in the senior ranks at Nationals, and Angela Wang who also won bronze at her 1st event was already given a 2nd assignment, so it was only fair to give Samantha a 2nd when she won bronze at her first event and did so with a score 7 points higher than Angela's. Plus Samantha had good results on the JGP last season so USFS had faith that she could do well after she skated well this summer at Liberty. Long competed as a junior at Nationals last season and will do so again this season, she placed 4th so she was lower down the pecking order for initial assignments despite skating well over the summer. Sending her out was more like a nice surprise, the USFS probably did so strategically to see how she faired internationally and so that she could earn the minimum TES to be sent to JW in the spring, her silver medal just serves to support her case to medal/win at Nationals and be named to the JW team, Barbie and her team probably knew she would not get a 2nd event and a chance to qualify for the final regardless of how she did due to how late she was assigned to her 1st event. In an icenetwork article, Barbie mentioned that she might get chosen to compete on the JGP, but she wasn't sure and was otherwise planning to compete at regionals and sectionals.

As for Shershak, there are so many good girls in Russia and her technical arsenal is very limited. She landed 3f in her test skate, but did not try it in her SP or FS in Croatia, nor 3lo which she had begun to attempt and land in her programs last season. So she essentially has 2 triples - 3t and 3s, last season she was lucky and was able to medal at her 1st event due to 3t-3t in the SP, Hick's withdrawal, Miyahara's URs, and good PCS in the FS, but here she had trouble with her SP so did not make the final warmup for the FS, and then skated a program that was quite simple technically and PCS were not as high likely because she was skating in the penultimate group and did not impress with her SP. Had she been assigned to an event earlier, she may still have been given a 2nd, but she was assigned late and Porogyralia skated better (won bronze, higher score, more technical content) so the final spot was given to her instead. I don't know why Shershak was sent out so late but maybe she was injured before.